Outlier
by GoWithTheFlo20
Summary: In a world where one is either born to dark or light magic, tension is rife, lines are drawn and war is always a shadow lurking just on the cusp of sight. When Harriet Potter gets sorted into Slytherin, she quickly learns what it means to be an Outlier, both feared and coveted. Thankfully, she has a few helping hands to guide her along the way. Dark!Fem!Harry. Tom/Harry/Severus
1. Chapter 1

**_Summary_: **In a world where one is either born to dark or light magic, tension is rife, lines are drawn and war is always a shadow lurking just on the cusp of sight. When Harriet Potter gets sorted into Slytherin, she quickly learns what it means to be an Outlier, both feared and coveted. Thankfully, she has a few helping hands to guide her along the way. Au. Dark!Slytherin!Fem!Harry. Tom/Harriet/Severus.

_**Tags: **_I've come in and completely disregarded ninety percent of canon. Just went and chucked it right out the bloody window. Complete AU. Familial magics. Black magic. Light magic. Triad pairing. Eventual smut (Heavy on the eventual). Deatheater extravaganza. Pureblood culture imagined. Pureblood society. Age-gap between pairing. Student-teacher relationships (only when Harriet is of age). Draco may be a ferret, but he's a loyal fucking ferret. Marcus Flint is smarter than he looks. Silver trio trope. _More to be added later. _

_**Cast: **_ Harriet Potter: Lily Collins. Tom Riddle: Tom Hughes. Severus Snape: Louis Garrel. (if you prefer the originals or have your own fan-casts, have at it! These are just who I picture as I write)

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**PROLOGUE:**

**Painstakingly ****Predictable**

* * *

_Severus Snape's P.O.V_

Professor Severus Snape, Potions professor at Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry, paid perfunctory attention to the sorting ceremony. There was only so much rambunctious first years, tedious and overzealous Albus speeches, and migraine inducing crowds he could take if, especially so early on in the year, he wished to make it to the end without being arrested for murder.

New faces, so lively and young, a new year, so fresh and crisp in the air, and yet… Everything was so terribly, horrendously predictable. If you had the pleasure, and Severus would use that word very lightly, of witnessing one sorting, you had seen them all. For Mordred's sake, for the fifth year in a row, Albus had gone on a fifteen minute tangent, upon his opening speech, describing his charmed socks. Hooch was, yet again, dabbling far too much in the fire-whiskey, which she was insipid enough to believe the other faculty members believed to be butterbeer. Sprout, once more, was talking to her Malaysian cat vine.

And don't get him started on the children themselves.

It turned out that, yes, blood was, as always, mind numbingly inevitable. Another freckled Weasley from their never-ending brood? Gryffindor. The latest, and almost certainly as similarly pompous, Malfoy heir? Slytherin. Another dazed, befuddled and airy Lovegood left to meander the grounds? Ravenclaw.

So very, very predictable.

As much as a witch or wizard might tote individuality as a mark of honour, Severus himself not exempt from such actions, boasting of Potions, Defence or Quidditch prowess that singled them out from their families predilections towards other subjects, blood, as it was oft to do, ran thick and true. Those of the light, as their founder's intended, were housed in Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. Those who were more… Open minded towards the darker shades of magic, fell to Slytherin, and to a lesser degree, Ravenclaw. It had been so for a thousand years, and Severus thought, it would be so for a thousand more.

Light belonged with light, dark belonged with dark, and never shall the two meet… Unless it was upon a battlefield. As Hogwarts's houses themselves slipped into this fundamental law of magic, split irrevocably into light and dark, so did wizarding families. Abbots were as equally light as Malfoys were black. Very seldom could either family say a witch or wizard housed out of Gryffindor or Slytherin respectively. In the Malfoy's case, they had only reached as far as Ravenclaw.

Of course, there were exceptions to this unspoken wizarding world rule. Over a decade past, nearing two if he were to be precise, when he too was as small and nervous as these children standing before him, there had been a Black, of all things, walking these very halls in red and gold. Three and a half centuries before that, a Flint donned the badger.

Nevertheless, these individuals, born to families whose magic was not aligned to their own, were often cast out from their families, and quasi-adopted into responding pureblood families respective of the Hogwarts house they had joined, and came to be known as Outliers. From his memory, which if Severus did say so himself, was pretty infallible, that very Black had been taken under wing by the Potters. A very old, very powerful family of the light.

It may sound cruel, heartless even, to those uneducated in the ways of purebloods. Chiefly given through the mouths of mudbloods who lacked even the most fundamental knowledge of how their world, and magic, worked. However, it was never done in malice or spite. It was done in _love._ It was for the welfare of family _and_ individual.

The catastrophe of mixing magics, light and dark… Well, there was a reason the destruction of Peverell family had become such a cautionary tale that was habitually instilled in children young. If nothing good came from witches or wizards who dabbled in time, even worse came for those who did not listen to their families magic and tried to break their covenant.

Those with a darker magic in their blood only belonged with those with a darker shaded family, and vice versa for those who gravitated towards light magics. To try and force anything else, even in the face of love for children, only, regrettably, ended in tragedy. Many a pureblood family had fallen to such a fate.

Still, these Outliers were sporadic, few and far between, and given Sirius Black's recent arrival and status of light despite his very dark family, no one, least of all Severus, was expecting to see another such happenstance in the next century. Perhaps four. Additionally, as rare as they were, it was even scarcer that an Outlier became aligned to dark magic. No. It was fare more prevalent that an Outlier came from a dark family and was taken into the light.

"Longbottom, Neville!"

_Gryffindor. _At Minerva McGonagall's call, a portly, red-faced, twitchy little boy came tottering forward. The sorting hat was barely on his head for a full thirty seconds before, as Severus had predicted, he too was sorted into the house his ancestor's had roamed.

"Malfoy, Draco!"

_Slytherin. _Correct.

"Oscar, William!"

_Hufflepuff. _Correct… Again. On and on it went. Child after child. Family after family. Severus paid little attention, only to the few strangling muggleborns. If only to see what house, should their lines continue, shall fall in. None came his way, to Slytherin. They never did.

Severus was reaching for his goblet, a fine elvish wine the Head of Slytherin house must have brought along, Gryffindor's had no taste and Hufflepuff's would drink and eat anything, when one of the last remaining children, huddled like a flock of chickens, was called forth to face fate.

"Potter, Harriet!"

_Gryffindor. _There had never been a Potter who had not sported the red and gold. One of the few remaining pureblood families who could boast such a fact of having no Outliers in their long, long history. Do not mistake him, Outlier's were not looked down upon. In fact, they were coveted. Desired. _Strongly_.

The power of a witch or wizard was no small trifle, and Outlier's were often those destined for greatness, the stuff of fables and legends, those who often turned the tide of wars, Sirius's defeat of Grindelwald being just that, and to add that new blood, that fresh magic, into your own and that of your family was a privilege many families often fought over.

To the death in some cases.

Yet, to brag of never having an Outlier was common too. It meant your family magic was, and had always been, kept within your own ancestral line. Secrets and skills hoarded like dragon's gold in blood and flesh. And to a family such as the Potter's, part of the sacred twenty-eight who had never, not once, deviated from the path of the light, made them a powerhouse amongst their contemporaries, one not smartly over looked, and a worthy adversary to those families more inclined to the darker arts that fit their blood and familial magic.

So, yes. Gryffindor. There had been no other way for the child to go. Yet… Yet, as a small girl, a spindly little thing with too large dimples, a mass of onyx curls that almost dwarfed her already minute frame, and eyes the colour of an unforgivable, came scampering forward, the hairs on the back of Severus's neck stood on end. Something… Something wasn't quite right.

There was something in the air. Heady. Dark. So very fucking dark. Opulent. It was skulking, just there, just out of reach, a wisp, there one moment, gone the next. Before Severus could inspect the feeling, dig a little deeper, perhaps send his own magic out to slither against it, suss it out, the darkness of it calling keenly to his own black magic, or even turn to his good friend and Head of house to see if he felt the same, the girl was plonking herself right on the rickety seat and the hat was being lowered. It didn't even make it to her brow, hovering over her rebellious curls before the hat was giving its decree.

"Slytherin!"

The girl smiled, hopped right on up, already skating over to Gryffindor table when their applause, as presumptuous as it was, came to a pathetic spluttering death when the House called finally registered. The Potter heir froze at the bottom of the stone steps, turned towards Gryffindor table, as still as the black lake in winter. The Great Hall fell to unshakable silence.

Even Severus, who was prideful of his quick wit and keener tongue, did not rightly know what to do or say. Slytherin? A Potter in Slytherin? The chair to his left squeaked against the cobbled stone, the echoing thud of footsteps barely registering as a lithe figure, impeccably dressed, strolled around the head table, over to the small, frozen child. It was the hand on her shoulder, pale, nimble fingered, gently coaxing her to turn away from Gryffindor and towards Slytherin table at the far end of the hall that broke the Potter heir out of her stupor.

It was Tom Riddle's soft smile as he led the poor girl over to her new home that broke Severus out of his. A… An Outlier, a Potter Outlier in… In Slytherin. Getting a hold of his senses, Severus cast a sneaking glance down the head table. Albus was ashen. Rightly so. The light had just lost it's biggest houses favour. The Potter child was the heir, the only child of house Potter, her parents were killed years ago in a duel against Grindelwald, and wherever she fell, once she came of age and took her rightful title as paramount, the might of house Potter went with her.

And here, in Slytherin, she was decidedly _not_ of the light persuasion.

"An-… A-… Anscombe, Lucy!"

The hall broke out in whisper's, a thousand spiders skittering, even as the next dithering child was brought up to the hat like a sacrificial lamb, dread now replacing what had once been bright excitement of the prospect of facing the same fate. Severus caught Tom's eye as he came back to the head table, after depositing the Potter child at Slytherin next to the Malfoy Heir, and watched as his soft grin turned sharp under the candlelight. Severus flashed his own back.

Perhaps it was not so painstakingly predictable after all.

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**What do you think? **


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER ONE:**

**So Much for Making Friends**

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_Harriet Potter's P.O.V_

Harriet Potter was going to Hogwarts, and from there, everything would fall into place. She knew it would. She would settle into Gryffindor's tower, as her mother and father had, and her grandparents, and theirs before them. She would make friends with Longbottom's, Weasley's, Wood's and Bell's as many of those from house Potter had done for centuries before her.

She'd play Quidditch, like her father. Perhaps she would be gifted in Potions, as her mother had been. She would study hard, excel in Defence against the Dark arts, and from there, when all was said and done, she would join the Auror programme, and, finally, she would, maybe, just a little, be the kind of daughter her parents could have been proud of.

That's all Harriet wanted.

She had it all mapped out, you see. She was a Potter, and that meant _something_. Being an Auror was in her blood. Fighting the good fight, saving people, helping make the world a better place one felon at a time… That's what Potter's were. As far back as the great family tree went, there they stood. Auror Hardwin. Auror Henry. Auror Fleamont. Auror Euphemia. Auror James. Auror Lily. Some of the best Auror's ever recorded, their names lined the Order of Merlin memorial wall in the Ministry of Magic. Auror Potters.

The lot of them.

Well, not all. There were the few Healers sprinkled on her family tree. But, well, as her godfather Sirius could attest, Healing wasn't in Harriet's deck of cards. The last time she had tried, on a poor alley cat with a broken leg, under the watchful eye of her other godparent and carer, Remus Lupin, of course, she may have… Accidentally, and she really did swear it was accidental, made the poor fluff-ball explode in a splatter of bone marrow and chunks when it had scratched her hand.

But that was an accident. It didn't mean _anything_. She was only a bit too excessively enthusiastic and disorderly with her magic. Even Sirius had said so. These things happen, he said. It _wasn't _dark magic. She was a Potter, an heir to one of the highest standing light families, and Potter's couldn't preform dark magic, just as, in Sirius's words, a bloody Malfoy couldn't preform Healing magic because it was too light.

Still, even if it had caused Remus and Sirius to lock themselves away in the library of Grimmauld Place, Sirius blasting an old record from the band Queen, which he only ever did when Remus and he were arguing and didn't want Harriet to hear, it was all too soon brushed under the rug and promptly forgotten. It was an accident, as with the other times.

The few times Harriet had met her muggle relatives, not something she enjoyed doing, no matter how much Sirius told her family was important, it was an accident when she ballooned aunt Marge and sent her floating away across the skies of Surrey. It was an accident when she locked Dudley into that python cage at the zoo last year. It was an accident that the gobstoppers the child at the local park, the one Sirius used to take her to play, when she made a rather nasty joke on Harriet's hair, turned to rocks and spiders, breaking her front teeth. And Mrs. Lavinstone, Harriet's tutor… Well, it was best not to think of her, but that had been an accident too.

All of it.

Accidental flares of magic in young children were common, and it meant nothing. Sirius said so, and as an eleven-year-old girl, who idolized her godfather and the only father figure she had ever known, what Sirius said was law. Harriet was a Potter, and that was all that needed to be known. So when she got onto the Hogwarts Express on the 1st September, trunk full and high on a type of excitement that only children can truly understand, after giving a quick kiss and hug goodbye to her godparents standing teary eyed on the platform, accidental magic, exploding cats, a screaming Dudley, and shattered teeth and bleeding gums were the last thing on her mind.

She was doing it! She was going to Hogwarts! She was going to be a Gryffindor! She was going to be a good, noble witch! Just like her mother and father, and so many Potters before them.

The compartment door slammed open, jolting Harriet away from the window, snapping her from watching as the rolling green hills of Scotland trundled passed. A boy stood at the crux of the door, half hanging in from the wide walkway. His pale face was splashed with taupe freckles, blending into the smudge of dirt he had smeared across his nose like a shooting comet. His curly red hair blazed amber under the evening sun.

"Excuse me, do you mind? Everywhere else is full."

Harriet shook her head. His accent was thick, steering you's to be ya's and mind to be min'. The red hair. The freckles. The lazy accent. Harriet knew who he was. How could she not? She had seen Arthur Weasley once, lost amongst the crowd of the drab Ministry workers when Remus had taken her to meet Sirius after he came back from a month-long mission.

"No, not at all."

Merlin, she sounded a bit too eager, didn't she? Voice pitched to a high crack like a whip spitting in the air. Harriet couldn't help it. She didn't have many friends. Well, none really, as sad as that sounded.

Sirius had supposed it was for the best, just until she could get her accidental magic under control. Remus, at the time, had bit back with a _you can't hide it forever, Padfoot. They're going to know soon enough. _Mordred knows what _it_ was, but it had led to their biggest fight, Remus sleeping on the couch and a cold, almost silent war raging between the two, until Remus broke and brought Sirius a box of whiskey truffles, and promised not to bring it, again Harriet didn't know what this _it_ was, up again.

Yet, there was no Sirius here to rush her away from an inquisitive wizarding child, no shop to dash her out of when a store clerk got a bit too close in Diagon Alley, and there was no birthday invitations from pureblood families Sirius could decline with a soft, _you can go next year, Harry_. Next year, however, never came.

But it had, hadn't it?

Next year, in some abstract way, was right here, today. As this was her chance to make her parents proud, to make Sirius and Remus proud, to prove she could control her magic, she could be _good_, this too was her chance to make friends. And suddenly, she was terrified. What did friends do? What did you say? What _shouldn't_ you say?

"I'm Ron, by the way. Ron Weasley."

The ginger boy introduced himself as he shuffled into the compartment, dropping to the opposite bench in a flutter of robe and sagging shoulder. Ah, familiar ground! You could always spot a pureblood as soon as they opened their mouth. They always made sure to announce their family name before much else. It was common decency; Remus had told her. Best you know if you're in the presence of your own kind, someone who's magic wouldn't lash out and hurt you on instinct, rather than unintentionally finding yourself boxed in by those of a different shade.

"I'm Harry. Harriet Potter."

Ron's mouth flapped open, and there, mushed into his back molars, Harry could see the remnants of some sort of sandwich crust. She tried, she really, truly did, not to wince.

She failed miserably.

"Blimey! You're the Potter's kid! Is- Is it true? I mean, did they really…"

Harry frowned, voice slick like oil.

"Did they what?"

Harry didn't know why she was angry. Livid. She just… Was. She could feel it, like a burning lump of coal in her chest, lit and hot and scorching.

"Did they really hold back Grindelwald? Well, until Sirius Black got there?"

The heat in her chest dampened, simmering down from a boil to a soft, glowing sizzle in her sternum. It didn't fully go away. It never did. Nevertheless, Harry painted on a smile, maybe a little too sharply, wiggled in her seat and nodded.

"Oh, yeah. Yeah they did."

No one knew what Lily and James had been doing in Hogsmeade that day. No one knew why they had brought their fifteen-month-old child along when, all across Britain, a red alert had been given for Grindelwald's sudden appearance in the highlands. No one knew much at all, in truth. Sirius too, despite the Ministry's constant pushing, stayed mum on the matter.

They knew Lily, James and an infant Harry were there that day. They knew Grindelwald appeared somehow, for some bloody reason. They knew a fight broke out. They knew James and Lily had grievously injured Grindelwald. They knew Grindelwald bounced back, killing both her mother and father, and somewhere, in that mess, Sirius Black had appeared, reasons unknown, saw his dead friends littering the street, baby Harriet being carried away by Grindelwald, and completely lost it.

Apparently, Sirius had not even left a body behind to be buried.

Everybody knew the actions of that day. It had been splashed across every wizarding newspaper. The greatest dark wizard, dead at last! Potter heroes lost their lives for the greater good! Sirius Black hailed Champion! No one knew the reasons behind those actions. Not one. No. That wasn't quite right, was it? A few knew, no one was speaking.

James and Lily were dead. Sirius never spoke more than he had to on that day. Albus Dumbledore, who had been there but for unknown reasons incapacitated to fight Grindelwald, would not speak either. To be completely honest, Harriet thought that last one, even if he did finally break his silence, couldn't be trusted fully.

He was bloody senile.

The one time she had the pleasure of meeting one of the chief wizards of their time had been when she had been with Sirius, collecting her new books for the on coming school year in Flourish and Blotts, only a few months ago. He had greeted Sirius with a smile and hearty pat on the shoulder, looked right down at her and then, abruptly, he had seemed so very sad. It had been strange, so very strange, that smile… Harriet had never known a smile could look so tortured.

_You have your father's eyes. _That was all Dumbledore had said, before he was sweeping away in a swoosh of pink robe, off to welcome other families. Which, of course, was complete codswallop. Harriet had her _mother's _eyes. Everybody knew that. She looked like her father, but she had her mother's eyes. So, yes. Harriet thought Dumbledore might be creeping into dementia, or the poor guy needed new glasses.

"Wicked!"

Harry jumped at Ron's sudden exclamation. Anew, she grimaced. No. Not wicked. Definitely not in the way, with his toothy grin and sparkly eyes, Ron meant wicked. He opened his mouth again, likely to press for more information, information Harriet didn't have, when the screech of wheels cut him off. A trolley, filled to the brim with shiny colourful sweets and fizzing pops, came to a squealing halt at their door. When the old lady pushing the trolley smiled warmly at them, Harriet was immensely grateful to her and her inadvertent distraction.

"Anything off the trolley, dears?"

Ron dug a hand into his trouser pocket, producing a crumpled roll of wrapped ham sandwiches. Well, there was the culprit of the crusty molar.

"No, thanks, I'm all set."

He smacked his lips, as if to make a point. Yet, his face said anything but as he almost languishedly gawked at the pile of sugar quills. Here was her chance! Harry may not be the best at social interactions, and maybe she always said the wrong things at the wrong time, a habit Remus said she had picked up from Sirius, but money didn't speak, did it? Everybody liked gifts. Digging into her own pocket, she plucked out her coin purse and held it out to the lady.

"We'll take the lot!"

And it worked. Ron Weasley was all to happy to help her make her way through the mountain of sugary treats, and, right there and then, Harry really, _really_ thought this was it. She'd done it. She'd made a friend.

And then the blasted rat showed its horrid little face and it all went tumbling down hill.

While Ron was on his fifth chocolate frog, and Harry had just barely unwrapping her second blood lollipop, the mangy little thing came scuttling out his pocket, tunnelling its beady head into the empty carton of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Bean, squeaking distastefully.

"This is Scabbers, by the way. Pitiful, isn't he?"

Harry nodded, casting a quick glance to the cage beside her, housing her own familiar, Hedwig's white feather's ruffling in agitation at the sight of the rat. No doubt, he wanted to eat the Merlin damned rodent. Harry, idly, was in half a mind to let him.

All she had to do was slowly reach over and unlock his cage. Mother nature would do the rest. She managed to pull her hand back just as it was lifting from her knee. Killing someone else's familiar, she thought, was decidedly _bad, _and she wasn't bad. She was good. _She was._ Still…

She had never liked rats.

"Just a little bit."

Ron flicked the empty packet from the Chocolate frog to the growing pile besides him, using the tatty sleeve of his jumper to roughly wipe at his lips. His mouth was still full when he spoke.

"Fred gave me a spell to turn him yellow. Want to see?"

This smile was true, dimpled and all, as Harry nodded so fast her curls, which had escaped her braid, whipped her in the eye.

"Yeah!"

Ron cleared his throat, plucked his wand free, and aimed the tip right at the rat's head.

"Ahem. Sun-"

The door to their compartment crashed open again. A girl, around Harry's own age, came storming in without so much as a how-do-you-do, already dressed in her blank sorting robes. Her head was tilted high, her nose almost directly in the air, forcing the short girl to stare down it at them. Nonetheless, Harry's attention was ensnared by her hair. If she had any previous thoughts that her own was wild, this girls explosion of bushy brown curls made her appreciative to her own, most often than not, bird's nest.

And that was saying something.

"Has anyone seen a toad? A boy named Neville's lost one."

Ron scoffed.

"No."

And if it was left at that, if this new girl had just nodded and walked away, everything would have been different. But she didn't. She saw Ron's wand, saw it point at the bloody rat, and her eyebrows shot up high as she pressed in deeper in the compartment, nose as snobbishly high as her tone was snooty.

"Oh, are you doing magic? Let's see then."

Ron straightened in his seat, coughed once more, and began to wave his wand about in sweeping, lazy arches.

"Sunshine, daises, butter mellow, turn this stupid fat rat yellow!"

There was a pitiable sputter as a zap of pale magic left his wand and snipped at the rat's bum. The rat didn't so much as jump. Ron shrugged. The girl, however, crossed her arms over her chest and, obnoxiously, one of her Mary-jane clad feet began to pat, pat, pat on the floor. For a flash, Harry saw herself, in her mind, kicking her own leg out, sweeping the foot, pulling, maybe stomping right on the ankle, the snap of bone echoing in her ear, matching the excited thump of her heart.

Harry obstinately shoved that thought away before it could fully form.

That would be mean. Mean meant bad. She wasn't bad. She really _wasn't_.

"Are you sure that's a real spell? Well, it's not very good, is it? Of course, I've only tried a few simple spells myself, and they've all worked for me. For example..."

Struggling to get a hold of herself, Harry couldn't do much else before the girl was sauntering over, barging passed Ron to sit in front of Harry near the windows primly. In a blink, a wand was aimed right at Harry's face.

"Oculu-"

Harry lashed out. Her hand shot up, grasping the witches wrist, and then she was ramming it into the window, the wrist thwacking into the glass with a crack and sickening snap. The girl cried out, her wand dropping to the carpeted floor between their feet. Before Harry knew exactly what she was doing, before she could control herself, Harry was up and out her seat, the girls wrist forgotten, her own wand out and in her hand, hot in her palm with restrained magic, tip jabbing painfully underneath the girls jaw, forcing her head to tilt back, and up, looking at her with alarmed, wide eyes.

She didn't look so fucking superior now, did she?

Ron jumped up from his seat, backing up a step on shaky limbs, his damned rat now shrieking at being shoved off his leg in his hast to get up and away. The girls arm snapped to her chest, cradling the limb as she gasped and stuttered. That burning was back, right in Harry's chest, an inferno now, and there, deep in the hollows of her gut, was something heavy, squirming, cold and dark. Snakes hissing and coiling.

"I-I was only going to fix your glasses!"

Harry couldn't control her breathing, weighty in her chest. Nor could she dampen down those flames licking at her. Or control that squirming slick feeling deep inside. When she spoke, Harry didn't recognize her own voice, as biting and rough as it had become.

"Word of advice, don't aim your wand at someone's face, without invitation or explanation, if you don't want a bloody duel! The next person you try that on might not be so kind!"

Yet, Harry did succeed in forcing herself to lower her wand from the girls neck. She didn't want to, she really _didn't_ want to, there was something nasty inside, something with her own voice, whispering and coaxing, telling her to do it, _do it_, shoot a spell off, any, just teach the girl a lesson, don't let her get away with aiming her wand at her, don't give her the opportunity to do it again, just one quick spell…

The girl dived down, using her good hand to snatch up her wand at Harry's feet, and then she was running for the door, voice high and distressed.

"I was only trying to help!"

Harry snapped, trailing after her into the walkway of the train, shouting at her quickly retreating back.

"Well next time think, you bloody moron! Or a broken wrist will be the least of your worries!"

The girl, who Harry thought she heard sobbing, shouldered passed a few second and third years who were loitering in the hall, a few more nosy heads from neighbouring compartments poking out at the loud confrontation. Harry didn't care. She was still trying to stop herself from flinging a hex at the girls quaking back. Ron edged out beside her.

"That was a bit harsh, mate. She was just trying to help. It was harmless. There was no need to hurt and shout at her."

Harry whirled on him. Why was she the bad guy? She hadn't done anything wrong! It was the girl who, with not a single word, pulled a wand out at her! Muggleborn or not, which it was likely the former, she should have enough brains not to do so. It was like a muggle pulling out a gun, taking aim at someone's head, and then when the person reacted, begged off with the excuse that they only wanted to shoot the fly off their ear.

"She aimed her wand at my face with no explanation. She's lucky that's _all _I did."

Ron was silent, eerily so, as he looked at her. And looked. And looked. And looked some more. Harry didn't know what he was looking for, what he could possibly find in her eyes, but find something he did. Something sparked in the far recess of his eye, deep in the pupil, something that looked like… Fear. Then he was backing away.

"I'm going to go see if she's alright."

Harry reached for him, finger's stretching for shoulder, trying to explain, trying to… Do something. Yet, he yanked himself away, darting down the hall the same way the girl went. How did it all go so horribly wrong so fast?

"No- Wait… I'm sorry… I…"

But he was already gone. Done the hall. Away. Harry's hand flopped to her side. Most of the hallway cleared, largely noticing whatever that had happened was over now, but Harry couldn't unglue her feet from the spot they had taken root in. She… She didn't mean to scare anyone. Hurt anyone. She never did.

She just couldn't help herself.

That's when she spotted him. Another boy. First year. Unrobed. His hair an astonishing shade of platinum, slicked back from his face. He was standing at the compartment next to hers, leaning on the door frame casually, head cocked to the side with one silver brow arched imperiously high on his pointy face. He had likely heard the entire thing. He grinned at her brightly, about to take a step forward. Harry glowered and marched back into her compartment, slamming the door shut behind her with a thump.

So much for making friends.

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**Thoughts?**

**A.N: **So, that didn't quite go to plan for poor Harriet, lol. I know this is a step back from last chapter time wise, but I thought it would be good to get a feel for Harriet before we jump right into it. Next chapter, we pick up right as we left in the prologue, back with Harriet after she got sorted into Slytherin. And for those confused about how dark or light magic works in this fic, why magic is divided in this AU, it will be explained as we go along, as I can't quite say much without ruining the plot because I have a few twists coming up.

So, this update was fast! I only published chapter one two days ago, but, well, here it is! I'm not a fanfiction writer who likes sitting on her chapters, so I normally post as I write. However, if quick updates aren't your thing, let me know and I'll try to slow down, as I know they're not everyone's cup of tea.

All that nonsense done, thank you all for the lovely follows and favourites! I hope you liked this chapter and enjoyed the deepening mystery of the whole Grindelwald, Sirius and Potter's fiasco I have going on, and I really do wish you will enjoy what I've cooked up to come next. As always, if you have a spare moment, drop a review. They keep the little hamster in the wheel running and the fingers typing!


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